Free to anyone who has a Bandlab account. It looks like you have to install the Bandlab app and download it that way. I'm not sure about off line installation so anyone with more details can post here.

Free to anyone who has a Bandlab account. It looks like you have to install the Bandlab app and download it that way. I'm not sure about off line installation so anyone with more details can post here.

No offline installation available at this time, and I doubt they are going to ever pursue this. Big shame.
Also, be aware that Cakewalk by BandLab does not let you nominate a download location, it all hits your C drive.
If you are tight on drive space or already have all the accessories that come with Sonar Platinum, you only need to download the Cakewalk basic install, otherwise you'll have just over a 1gb of instruments and loops unnecessarily .
Sonar has long been my most preferred DAW for midi intense projects and this is all great news. I still have not found a DAW that even comes close to handling midi as well as the most current version of Sonar.
One suggestion I would make to anyone going at this new version, first install a copy of TreeSize so you can clean up the installation files after you get everything installed and up running.
While Sonar Platinum does allow you to clean up all the install files, CW by BandLab does not have this feature implemented, as yet.
The best news about all this is that now everyone can have a copy of Sonar, making sharing session files a breeze, there is no excuse for every mixer and producer on the planet to not have a copy to at the very least enable themselves to see others sessions before taking on a mix. The value of this may take some years to catch on but it's something I have longed hoped for. CW Boston had just brought SonPlat to the top of pile with it's steadfast development, before Gibson pulled the pin. From the sounds of it, justly so considering some pretty whacky decision making by management .
My hope is this will also invigorate the CW forum with new users looking forward and dilute the older set in their way types that emotionally reign over that forum at the expense of semi-pro and professional users.
Thanks for posting this.

Agreed. I think I almost always refer to it as Cakewalk. The BandLab version trims some of the bloat accumulated over it's course of development. I wouldn't mind seeing them ditch the ProChannel modules and Anderton stuff altogether, never used them. But I will give them credit for leading the way on rack type inserts that other developers now use.
Hopefully this will all give a clean fresh start to an really well designed DAW that has acquired way more negative regard than it deserves.

not sure what it is and the specs listed are few but both of marketing strategies brought by BandLab seem to indicate this company is about moving forward and connecting people. Considering they just took over CW a few weeks ago, these folks are moving quickly and might just be a name and brand we will grow accustom to hearing from.

I just downloaded CW, installed it, and have been navigating around. You don't have to do the "tip" thing.. just clear past that entire window and you see the program is already downloading. I'm okay with where it installs. If this should turn out to not be a "freebie" after all, I'll just uninstall.

I haven't used Cakewalk for at least 12-15 years. Whenever the Pro Audio versions were around.

Fun to navigate around. You don't have to be online at all to operate the program. I clicked all the analytic stuff off. Shows ver 24.04.0 Build 13.... if that means anything to current CW users.

Tested some JBridge 32bit stuff. All work fine. I see bitbridge in the menus, but I've never used it, so I'll stick with JBridge when testing any 32bit stuff.

While I won't switch ever again from Cubase, the CW look is pleasant. It'll be fun to play around with this considering it's free. So far anyway.

I haven't used Cakewalk for at least 12-15 years. Whenever the Pro Audio versions were around.

CW look is pleasant.

I typically mix in either PT or Harrison, when I produce or arrange, I always head back to Cakewalk, and as you said, its a pleasant appearance and super easy to navigate around environment that I'm happy to be in
Truth, it was not until about a year ago that the platform really started to gel and become ultra stable, I don't think I had one crash that was not of my own doing.
It's really a strong DAW, and I do not think the free thing is going to go away, rather it is going to become a gateway into other products and platforms. And if at some point there is a paid pathway for upgrading or version changing, the BandLab owner has stated that he intends this free version to always be available to any and all who get in early. This move is definitely going to have an effect on other DAW makers, particularly their price point.
The version you have is the most current, stripped of some of the bloat. The next scheduled update for this version is 04/10/2018 and my understanding is that it will only be how the licence key is handled. There really is not much to complain about with this version, very stable. In the past I have been very critical of the Sonar line, but now I'm starting to sound like a fan!! truth is I'm not really fussed which I am in these days, unless there is midi involved, for that my preference is Cakewalk

Currently, Cakewalk by BandLab (aka Sonar Platinum's core) remains a separate DAW from their own BandLab.com collaboration website DAW. This is sure to change in the near future, and it will be tremendous when it happens.

So currently, any and everybody can get the best Sonar Platinum DAW for free, worth close to $500.

They can already use the collaboration DAW in BandLab.com, but from what I can tell, that whole model is still not at the level professional DAW projects are done. Nonetheless, when BandLab does integrate their newly named Cakewalk by BandLab (aka Sonar Platinum) into their collaboration site, things are going to be incredible.

To be able to share the largest files, and many versions, with one another in their cloud, for FREE, is too much to turn down. That's how it stands right now! Then, when they get Sonar Platinum integrated into the site, people will be able to Edit, Mix, and Master all online. Wow!

I have no idea what they will charge in the future, but currently everything remains free. Sonar Platinum DAW is free, and using their collaboration site has been and continues to be free.

The timing on this is pretty remarkable for myself since I happen to have created a Musicians Group in St. Louis using the Meetup.com site, and our 3rd meeting is this coming Saturday, April 7, and the group is going to try and create a CD of all original songs by true collaboration to represent St. Louis and make sales and get some notoriety. We are almost at 100 members and close to 25 have RSVP'd "yes" to this Saturday's meetup. We are all strangers to one another and the logistics were going to have to be worked through, but now, coming to learn about BandLab.com, it's like the writing is on the wall.

A word of caution about sharing mixes songs etc on Bandlabs platform. We are granting them and other users our copyrights and may not be able to withdraw permissions.

It is important to understand that when you upload to or create Content on the Services, you remain the owner of the copyright in that Content, but you grant BandLab, and other Users a licence to copy, download, modify, synchronise, play, perform and even potentially commercialise that Content, depending on your Content sharing settings.

CONTENT SHARING: You may use BandLab’s settings to control who can access your Content, and the extent of access to and use which they can make of your Content.

Private – All Content is set to “Private” by default, meaning that only you can access it, make adaptations of it and use it.
Public– This setting allows other Users to view your Content or play it on BandLab by streaming, but they will not be able to download, adapt , synchronise or use that Content.
Forkable– If you have Content that it is ready to be published and would like other Users to be able to take it further by remixing, modifying or otherwise developing it themselves, you can change the setting on that Content to allow forks or be “forkable”. Other Users will then be able to copy, download, modify, play, perform, synchronise, and even commercialise that Content or their adaptations of that Content. You can make either a single or series of revisions in a song “forkable”.
Tree View: You can trace your creative process in Tree View in both your Bands and your personal account. Tree View allows you to view and access previous versions of Content, and to track how that Content has been used and developed by yourself, your Bands, or other Users with whom the Content has been shared.
BandLab was built specifically for musicians and creators to collaborate with each other. The tools available on BandLab allow you to form bands, work with sessions musicians, or build upon another User’s creation by “forking”.

A word of caution about sharing mixes songs etc on Bandlabs platform. We are granting them and other users our copyrights and may not be able to withdraw permissions.

It is important to understand that when you upload to or create Content on the Services, you remain the owner of the copyright in that Content, but you grant BandLab, and other Users a licence to copy, download, modify, synchronise, play, perform and even potentially commercialise that Content, depending on your Content sharing settings.

CONTENT SHARING: You may use BandLab’s settings to control who can access your Content, and the extent of access to and use which they can make of your Content.

Private – All Content is set to “Private” by default, meaning that only you can access it, make adaptations of it and use it.
Public– This setting allows other Users to view your Content or play it on BandLab by streaming, but they will not be able to download, adapt , synchronise or use that Content.
Forkable– If you have Content that it is ready to be published and would like other Users to be able to take it further by remixing, modifying or otherwise developing it themselves, you can change the setting on that Content to allow forks or be “forkable”. Other Users will then be able to copy, download, modify, play, perform, synchronise, and even commercialise that Content or their adaptations of that Content. You can make either a single or series of revisions in a song “forkable”.
Tree View: You can trace your creative process in Tree View in both your Bands and your personal account. Tree View allows you to view and access previous versions of Content, and to track how that Content has been used and developed by yourself, your Bands, or other Users with whom the Content has been shared.
BandLab was built specifically for musicians and creators to collaborate with each other. The tools available on BandLab allow you to form bands, work with sessions musicians, or build upon another User’s creation by “forking”.

Thanks for posting the privacy/licensing options. They look pretty flexible. Of course, it's obviously not possible to retain full sole rights in a creative collaboration. It does seem like there is a sort of 'missing tier' there, though. It might be nice to be able to limit creative control not just to a sole artist as can be done but to allow collaboration only within a fixed set of people -- and I'm not sure that's an option as I read the above TOS section. Still, it looks like they've put some thought into adopting Open Source licensing concepts to the task of online collaboration.

The Terms of Service strike me as hardly draconian. (And, having started putting my music online in the mid 1990's, I've looked over a whole lot of TOS's.)

Just how would YOU set up the licensing options for an online service directly oriented to online, collaborative music or other content creation?

One obviously can't approach it in the same fashion as a simple upload/download site where artists license others to listen to their music but not use it in collaborations, remixes, etc. For the sake of those using the site, the terms and conditions have to be clear and explicit, providing latitude for the intended social music uses.

To be able to share the largest files, and many versions, with one another in their cloud, for FREE, is too much to turn down.

As echo'd by someone one else... and I don't want to rant...but.....wtf are you millennials thinking?

Do you experience joy and rapture putting your bank account, password, social security number, atm card number and password up on a social media site to "share"? This thinking is as bad as the homeless panhandling (on purpose) college dropout hippies in August 1969.

If you're in the midst of "creating" art, and you're sitting in a chair across from one or two other human beings, and all three of you are sitting there, collaborating on a song, or artwork for a brochure, or a movie script....... ALL THREE of you have an understanding, if not contract, on who will own what.

But geez..... blindly slapping your half-baked song up to 100,000,000 other people because you came up with what you think is a "cool" riff (which no doubt is cliche', derivative, and overused a billion times in the past 5years if not past 50 years)...... and you want to "share" it...... or worse..... you want "help" in finishing the tune. You are all such blatant "nodes" or "cores" of those who you feed info to. And so few of you can see it.

Unbelievable. The first label I'll slap you with...no...second label after millennial... is..... hobbyist. And if that's the case, go ahead.... glut the sonic landscape with more undeveloped, will-not-stand-the-test-of-time, noodling around. It's just more noise for your short-attention span, connected crowd.

If you really consider yourself a pro who is constructing art....even if only in your heart or in the eyes of your mother..... and.... you value your ability and individualism and what only-you can bring to a piece of art created (or a carefully decided-on collaborator)...... then.....wtf are you doing, belittling your individual creative energy by............. throwing your work out to the masses.....many of whom are morons?

Do you not value your own abilities? Do you not understand holding creations closely, if not for personal reasons, than, for the reasons that if you are a professional or aspire to be.... your work is valueless to anyone who may pay (and no, I don't mean the public.... I mean those who will pay BIG because they see their angle on how to utilize your work and they themselves may not even ever release it to the public after they pay you astronomical sums).....if they see that you have fired your work in all kinds of stages out into the ozone and into the hands of the moron masses..... before you even completed it.

Social media is such a stupid move in everything but a few....and I mean a few... uses.

It'll be your kids kids who finally get a grasp on how wild wild west social media was in the second/third decade of the 21st century.

And everyone thought the year 2000 was the peak of online thievery in that wild wild west.

Hey everyone, here's my bank account access info. Take a look.... pretty cool eh? Any ideas on how to spend some of it? I have too much and I'm stuck on what to do next. Here's a selfie I took next to my safe deposit box. I left a copy of the key at Starbucks with Bob. Grab it and go take a look in the safe deposit box at the bank. Lemme know what you think. Here's my id and ss in case the bank asks for it.

End of rant.... Exploring Cakewalk is cool. I uninstalled the bandcamp.exe and CW still works fine. I'll explore the program more as time goes on.

I'm too cynical to believe they are giving it away since they want you to install the "Assistant". Put the app in a .zip file and I'll take it from there.

Once Cw was installed, I uninstalled the bancamp assistant exe portal. CW still works great as I explore it.... and I'm offline when I run the program.

At the point that the original download was happening (before install), I saw the CW exe stored briefly, but it was only 149mb or something, so I didn't grab it to save elsewhere to experiment with later.

One hink I've run across: the BandLab app autoruns on Win startup (at least in 7) and it can take several minutes to load and stabilize.

In contravention to established practice, there is NO option to NOT allow it to start automatically on its menus that I've found. Nor does it appear on the Startup Tab of the Win System Configuration dialog! (There is a QUIT option but it auto-loads when you restart.)

HOWEVER, I did notice an unfamiliar call to GitHub (the online file repository where I guess the BL script code lives) -- apparently an update check -- and by unchecking that on the Startup Tab page in the Win config dialog, I was able to keep BL from loading up and sitting there 'uselessly.' The call is NOT labeled in any way I could see with the BandLab name.

Thanks for posting the privacy/licensing options. They look pretty flexible. Of course, it's obviously not possible to retain full sole rights in a creative collaboration. It does seem like there is a sort of 'missing tier' there, though. It might be nice to be able to limit creative control not just to a sole artist as can be done but to allow collaboration only within a fixed set of people -- and I'm not sure that's an option as I read the above TOS section. Still, it looks like they've put some thought into adopting Open Source licensing concepts to the task of online collaboration.

You want full control of safety? Don't leave $100 bill sitting on a table at Denny's on Sunset in Hollywood.

And don't upload art you're working on.....anywhere.

The bandcamp terms of service are very clear. They say, "if you want full protection and peace of mind, don't upload anything at all in any way, shape or form to our servers".

As echo'd by someone one else... and I don't want to rant...but.....wtf are you millennials thinking?

Do you experience joy and rapture putting your bank account, password, social security number, atm card number and password up on a social media site to "share"? This thinking is as bad as the homeless panhandling (on purpose) college dropout hippies in August 1969.

If you're in the midst of "creating" art, and you're sitting in a chair across from one or two other human beings, and all three of you are sitting there, collaborating on a song, or artwork for a brochure, or a movie script....... ALL THREE of you have an understanding, if not contract, on who will own what.

But geez..... blindly slapping your half-baked song up to 100,000,000 other people because you came up with what you think is a "cool" riff (which no doubt is cliche', derivative, and overused a billion times in the past 5years if not past 50 years)...... and you want to "share" it...... or worse..... you want "help" in finishing the tune. You are all such blatant "nodes" or "cores" of those who you feed info to. And so few of you can see it.

Unbelievable. The first label I'll slap you with...no...second label after millennial... is..... hobbyist. And if that's the case, go ahead.... glut the sonic landscape with more undeveloped, will-not-stand-the-test-of-time, noodling around. It's just more noise for your short-attention span, connected crowd.

If you really consider yourself a pro who is constructing art....even if only in your heart or in the eyes of your mother..... and.... you value your ability and individualism and what only-you can bring to a piece of art created (or a carefully decided-on collaborator)...... then.....wtf are you doing, belittling your individual creative energy by............. throwing your work out to the masses.....many of whom are morons?

Do you not value your own abilities? Do you not understand holding creations closely, if not for personal reasons, than, for the reasons that if you are a professional or aspire to be.... your work is valueless to anyone who may pay (and no, I don't mean the public.... I mean those who will pay BIG because they see their angle on how to utilize your work and they themselves may not even ever release it to the public after they pay you astronomical sums).....if they see that you have fired your work in all kinds of stages out into the ozone and into the hands of the moron masses..... before you even completed it.

Social media is such a stupid move in everything but a few....and I mean a few... uses.

It'll be your kids kids who finally get a grasp on how wild wild west social media was in the second/third decade of the 21st century.

And everyone thought the year 2000 was the peak of online thievery in that wild wild west.

Hey everyone, here's my bank account access info. Take a look.... pretty cool eh? Any ideas on how to spend some of it? I have too much and I'm stuck on what to do next. Here's a selfie I took next to my safe deposit box. I left a copy of the key at Starbucks with Bob. Grab it and go take a look in the safe deposit box at the bank. Lemme know what you think. Here's my id and ss in case the bank asks for it.

End of rant.... Exploring Cakewalk is cool. I uninstalled the bandcamp.exe and CW still works fine. I'll explore the program more as time goes on.

I won't be uploading anything of course.

Gee you seem awfully mad at people for doing what THEY want to do instead of what you THINK they should do...

I mean, it's nice to warn folks to read the fine print and think about what they are doing -- but why berate others with such vehemence and at such length simply for making decisions you don't agree with?

One hink I've run across: the BandLab app autoruns on Win startup (at least in 7) and it can take several minutes to load and stabilize.

In contravention to established practice, there is NO option to NOT allow it to start automatically on its menus that I've found. Nor does it appear on the Startup Tab of the Win System Configuration dialog! (There is a QUIT option but it auto-loads when you restart.)

HOWEVER, I did notice an unfamiliar call to GitHub (the online file repository where I guess the BL script code lives) -- apparently an update check -- and by unchecking that on the Startup Tab page in the Win config dialog, I was able to keep BL from loading up and sitting there 'uselessly.' The call is NOT labeled in any way I could see with the BandLab name.

Uninstall the bandlab.exe and it's no longer anywhere if you check programs/features.

If you turn off all analytics in CW (there are a couple of places), there are no calls out for updates etc.

Gee you seem awfully mad at people for doing what THEY want to do instead of what you THINK they should do...

I mean, it's nice to warn folks to read the fine print and think about what they are doing -- but why berate others with such vehemence and at such length simply for making decisions you don't agree with?

I did do that at length now didn't I?

I stand behind it and actually don't aim any animosity to the bandlab guys. They're just gonna make their buck with the model that is so common.

Someone will read what I typed and think.

That in itself is why I typed so much detail.

If my history weren't so entrenched in music.... and having hit product I created... and being in bazillions of lawsuits to protect my works... that netted me a huge nestegg........... because I protected my art from day one.... then I perhaps wouldn't be so sensitive about things in this area.

I'm really not ranting so much as saying..... do you want a shot at creating a bazillion dollars for yourself from art you create?

Uninstall the bandlab.exe and it's no longer anywhere if you check programs/features.

If you turn off all analytics in CW (there are a couple of places), there are no calls out for updates etc.

Now if the idea is that you want bandlab (not just CW).... well......

Ah, thanks very much for that practical info!

Since I'm not really interested in the collaboration options it offers at this time (and -- of course -- I'm aware of the privacy/rights issues), I might just do that, although removing the GitHub line in the sys config dialog keeps it from auto-running, so, for now, my annoyance with the auto-run is end-run.

Since I'm not really interested in the collaboration options it offers at this time (and -- of course -- I'm aware of the privacy/rights issues), I might just do that, although removing the GitHub line in the sys config dialog keeps it from auto-running, so, for now, my annoyance with the auto-run is end-run.

Thanks for this Blue, I'm not a fan of anything automatically running in the background or in priority unless I'm using it. It's off and staying off.
I will not ever be using the BandLab collaboration portals for anything, I respect the intention behind the approach but reading the TOS, it's all a bit too Facebookish for my liking. Personally, I lasted about a day on FB and could not delete that app quick enough.
Given the nature of intrusion committed intentionally by FB, that we are all just now becoming aware, I'm also disengaging with pretty much every company I have bought services from that has a FB login option/forced login point.
For the youngest members here who do not get why others might be leery of this, let me remind, you have never known life with your privacy valued, this is all fairly new for the majority and it is without a doubt something to at the very least be concerned about.
The big thing for me on their TOS is that they relieve themselves of any/all responsibility if another member violates someones rightful copyright , and I believe an attorney would tell you that it also limits any action one might be able to take to pursue a renegade user who might violate any and all copyright assertions by a member. To further complicate this, the company is based in Singapore, not knowing their sovereign laws regarding copyright or if they party to any copyright treaties with the U.S, UK or EU, it's just another glaring reason to be very sketch about using the collaboration portals or uploading any content to it.

I'm trying to figure out if the BandLab app is scanning my drive for content to queue. I don't keep any content of mine on my C drive , only reference tracks of other artist previously released material. I think BandLab is going to have to be much more open about how this app is working and do a helluva lot more to ensure privacy before I turn it back on.